Further Problems At Fukushima: ‘Mysterious Steam’ Reported

Vast plumes of steam are once again issuing from reactor building three at Fukushima Diiachi nuclear plant. they were first noticed on December 19th, then it stopped, then arose again over the Christmas period.

TEPCO has not given any indication where the steam is coming from and what radioactive components are in it.

In November, TEPCO, responsible for the decommissioning of the plant, began the highly risky removal of over 1,500 potentially damaged nuclear fuel rods from reactor 4. The reactor is the most unstable part of the plant as it was offline at the time of the 2011 catastrophe and its core didn’t go into meltdown. Instead, hydrogen explosions blew the roof off the building and severely damaged the structure.One of the most dangerous operations attempted in nuclear history was a success as a total of 22 assemblies containing 50 to 70 fuel rods have been transported to a new storage pool. While the extraction of the fuel rods is a significant challenge for TEPCO, a more complex task of removing the cores of the stricken reactors is yet to come.